


blood and fire

by Keira_63



Series: Klaroline One-Shots [12]
Category: The Vampire Diaries & Related Fandoms, The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: AU, AU 2x21, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Caroline is not turned by Katherine, Character Death, Damon Salvatore Bashing, Episode: s02e21 The Sun Also Rises, F/M, Klaroline, Klaus has more than one witch helping him at the sacrifice, Klaus turns Caroline for the sacrifice, Mentions of Sexual Assault, Murder, Not Caroline or Klaus, Past Sexual Assault, alternate first meeting, because Klaus is intrigued, because he’s definitely the sort to have a hundred back up plans, but things don’t go to plan, some anti-Salvatore & anti-Elena & anti-Bonnie sentiment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:08:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25557862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keira_63/pseuds/Keira_63
Summary: In a world where Caroline was never turned by Katherine, Klaus plans to use Caroline for the sacrifice instead of Jenna, only to find himself intrigued by the new baby vampire.Nominated for Best canon-ish one-shot in the 2020 KC Awards.
Relationships: Caroline Forbes & Klaus Mikaelson, Caroline Forbes/Klaus Mikaelson
Series: Klaroline One-Shots [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1014627
Comments: 27
Kudos: 212





	blood and fire

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own The Vampire Diaries - the original books were written by L J Smith and the TV show was developed by Julie Plec and Kevin Williamson. This story is the product of their characters and world and my imagination.

Caroline woke on cold, hard ground with no idea what had happened to her. The last thing she remembered was getting out of her car and heading towards her front door.

She’d been out shopping, she knew that. Alone of course, because that was what she always seemed to be lately.

It was like everyone was avoiding her. She could tell they were hiding something, however much they denied it, and they were all behaving very oddly. The only one who seemed normal was Matt, but she hadn’t seen much of him since they broke up.

It had been a very lonely few weeks.

Elena seemed to spend all of her time with either her aunt or one of the Salvatore brothers.

Jenna had been a little strange too, jumpy and anti-social. Caroline couldn’t remember the last time she’d been at the Gilbert house – there always seemed to be some reason why she couldn’t go over.

She’d tried talking to Bonnie and Stefan but they had only dodged her questions and left as soon as possible. They both avoided her like the plague and she couldn’t understand why. She would have thought they had suddenly decided they didn’t like her except they always looked guilty whenever they spotted her.

Then there was Damon, but her mind was extremely confused about him. She was sure they’d dated, but the sight of him terrified her. Sometimes she would remember the same event two different ways and occasionally she got really sad or angry or scared and she didn’t have a clue why. All she knew was that being around Damon messed with her head and she didn’t like it.

She stood shakily, and though she felt very peculiar there were no aches or pains that might help her pinpoint exactly what had been done to her.

Given that it had been about lunchtime when she’d blacked out, and it was now dark, she knew at least five hours must have passed. It worried her that she couldn’t remember any of them, especially considering she now appeared to be in the middle of the woods.

Confused and scared, she took a deep breath to try and calm herself, and then her senses went into overdrive.

Oh god, what was that delicious smell? Her gums were aching terribly and her throat felt like it was on fire and she really, _really_ needed a drink.

Her mind was in turmoil too. She was starting to remember things, horrible things. Monsters and blood and Damon. What the hell had Damon done to her?

She saw herself crying and begging and terrified, unable to stop him, unable to scream. He’d made her smile at him, made her enjoy his presence and forget what he’d done – no, not forget, simply ignore.

Bite marks all over and no idea why. Confusion over where she’d been. Crying in the bathroom. Retching in the sink with no clue why she felt ill.

And her friends had known. They’d all stood by and let him hurt her and use her and throw her away like trash.

God, she wanted to be sick.

She tried to concentrate on her surroundings, but she suddenly caught sight of Elena. Sweet, perfect Elena that everyone always picked first. Elena, who had exclaimed in horror over Caroline’s bite-marks and then seemingly forgotten all about them. Elena, who she’d seen only the day before, laughing with Damon.

She moved faster than she’d ever thought possible, fully intending to throw herself at Elena and rip the girl apart for not protecting her from Damon.

(And where did that speed come from? Why did she feel such uncontrollable rage and anger?)

Then there was fire all around her and she was trapped. Elena looked horrified and Caroline was just so, _so_ angry.

“How could you!” she cried out, “how could you let him use me like that. God Elena, I feel so disgusted and dirty. Why didn’t you stop him … and why is my throat on fire?”

“Caroline …”

“He raped me Elena!” she shouted, putting into words what her friends had always refused to say, “and you all let him.”

Elena’s face fell and she looked ashamed.

 _As she should do,_ thought Caroline.

However, the anger didn’t dissipate with Elena’s crestfallen expression. In fact, it only seemed to get worse when Caroline realised her friend couldn’t even be bothered to say sorry. Well, Caroline wasn’t going to be like the rest of the town, content with receiving merely a guilty look when the Mystic Falls golden girl had done something wrong but didn’t want to apologise.

She tried again, and again, and again to get out of the circle of flames that surrounded her, and every failure simply heightened her frustration. A perfectionist by nature, she didn’t like failing at something, even when it was under insane circumstances like this.

After a minute or two she let out a scream of frustration and simply ran full pelt at the circle surrounding her.

Clearly not one of her better ideas, she thought to herself as the flames flared up even higher and she was painfully thrown back into a crumpled heap on the floor.

She lay on the floor for only a few seconds before she felt the aches beginning to disappear. She took a brief moment to ponder the possible reasons behind this speedy recovery before her attention was taken by something else.

There was a woman at the edge of the circle, stepping through the flames as if they were nothing. She was muttering words Caroline couldn’t understand, but clearly it was nothing good because suddenly it felt to Caroline like all her nerves were on fire.

“Stop,” she cried out, trying to move, but barely managing to lift her head, “why are you doing this?”

But the woman didn’t answer her, only continued to mutter nonsense.

Caroline glared at her tormentor. She _hated_ feeling helpless, just as she despised being ignored like she wasn’t worth anything.

She looked away from the woman, towards the tree line, and then she caught of a glimpse of a familiar figure.

Damon Salvatore stood there watching Elena. He didn’t even glance in Caroline’s direction, despite her screams of pain, nor did he try to help her. She craned her head to look at Elena, who was crying prettily like a Disney Princess in distress and gazing at Damon with her trademark beseeching look. Caroline looked away, but something seemed off about her vision – everything seemed clearer and she could see even the slightest movement – and without even looking she managed to spot Bonnie and Stefan too. She was disappointed again, because Bonnie wasn’t looking at her and Stefan was watching Elena as intently as his brother was, before he began to glare in another direction.

Caroline was used to being a second, third, fourth choice. That didn’t mean that it didn’t hurt.

The thing that everyone always forgot about Caroline Forbes, though, was that she wasn’t just a pretty face. She might like boys and clothes and shopping, but she had a 4.0 average, she never let anyone tell her what she could or couldn’t do, and she would damn well do her best to save herself because obviously no one else was going to help her.

And so, Caroline gritted her teeth, tried to ignore the stabbing pains all over her body, and focussed instead on the odd set of instincts that suddenly seemed to be present in her mind.

She moved quickly to knock the woman down, planning only on subduing her long enough to try and escape. Instead, it seemed as if a monster inside her took over. Before she knew what she was doing she had snapped the woman’s neck, buried her teeth in the woman’s throat and she was drinking down warm, delicious blood that seemed to sate the thirst she had felt ever since she had woken up.

She drank and drank and drank until the blood flow became sluggish. Inside her head part of her was freaking out at her actions, but some primal, animalistic side of her had taken over.

By the time she unlatched her fangs (and _when_ had she managed to acquire those?) from the woman’s neck, there was absolutely nothing to be done. The body in front of her was completely still, the skin chalky white.

She was Caroline Forbes. Cheerleader, straight A-student, Miss Mystic Falls, daughter of the sheriff, chair of countless committees … and now a murderer.

* * *

Caroline scrambled backwards, trying to put as much distance as possible between herself and the body.

“What have I done?” she whispered, looking down at her blood-stained hands with horror.

She felt a sudden breeze and then there was a man kneeling down in front of her, his head tilted slightly as he watched her.

She eyed him warily. He was handsome but terrifying – there was something almost feral in his eyes and his smile was a cruel, sharp blade.

“Well, aren’t you a bloodthirsty little thing, sweetheart.”

She shook her head, even as her mind screamed out for more blood and her body vibrated with the need to destroy Damon and to force some kind of real apology out of Elena.

“No, I didn’t mean to. There was this smell and I couldn’t stop myself.”

She sobbed as she looked at the bloody body in front of her. The woman had been doing something to her, something bad, but surely she didn’t deserve death.

Caroline glanced at her hands, completely confused. She was athletic thanks to all her cheerleading, but she’d never been particularly physically strong – how could she have snapped the woman’s neck so easily?

She looked back up at the stranger. He didn’t seem to care about the body at all – there was no sadness or compassion in his expression, only cold disappointment.

He shook his head as he looked at the woman’s still body, “couldn’t even defend herself against a baby vampire who surprised her – pitiful really. I expected better, but good help is so hard to find.”

  
“Who are you? What’s happening to me?” Caroline asked in a small voice, trying desperately not to tremble.

He turned back to her with a knowing look, “my name is Klaus. And I think you know exactly what is happening, sweetheart, you just have to say it out loud.”

She didn’t want to, didn’t want to make it real. But with all the memories coming back to her she found that she did realise what she had become.

“I’m a vampire.”

“Correct, love.”

“I’m a monster,” she whispered.

He laughed, “and who ever told you that was a bad thing? You’ll have to forget your human morality, sweetheart, it’s all different now.”

He pointed to Damon, who was still watching Elena with worry, “you could punish him sweetheart, hurt him for what he did to you. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

It was tempting, so very tempting to just let go and attack, to give in to all the new instincts that were overwhelming her.

  
But she didn’t want to right now. She suddenly just felt drained and tired.

She looked up at Klaus. She didn’t have a clue who he was, but she could guess he was dangerous and probably powerful. The memories coming back were confused and jumbled but all she could recall were a few whispered conversations she had overheard where the name Klaus came up, often along with mention of someone called Elijah.

She muttered the name under her breath. There was something important about Elijah – or, at least, he had been important to Elena and the others.

Klaus moved so quickly that she didn’t even realise he’d dragged her to her feet until she was standing straight and facing him, “tell me everything you know about Elijah,” he demanded.

There was power behind his words, much stronger than what she had felt when Damon had turned her into his puppet and then made her forget.

She began speaking immediately, unable to stop even as Elena cried out a warning and Damon cursed her name. She spoke of every mention of Elijah, any time she had heard her friends talking about him when they spoke of sacrifices and plans, someone called Katherine and whether Elijah could be trusted.

She kept on speaking until there was nothing left to tell, and then she quietly asked Klaus if he was going to kill her.

There was a flash of déjà vu – she had asked Damon the same question and he had told her that yes, he’d kill her eventually.

Was that all she was worth - blood and sex for Damon, information for Klaus?

“That was the plan,” Klaus told her, entirely unrepentant about his intention to kill her, “but it seems that Elijah has been plotting against me with your little friends and will need to be dealt with immediately.”

“Besides,” he grinned – and despite the dire nature of the situation she couldn’t help but notice what beautiful dimples he had, devil though he seemed to be – “it doesn’t seem fair to kill you along with your friends, not after the way they treated you.” 

He sat on one of the rocks, tugging her down to the one next to him. She saw Damon out of the corner of her eye, inching forward to attack, but Klaus merely waved a hand and suddenly they were surrounded. She saw the look in her friends’ eyes – hopelessness – it seemed they’d finally realised what Caroline had known instinctively when she awoke. They were outnumbered and outgunned.

Eight men approached them, nodding their heads towards Klaus like subjects bowing to a king.

“Find Elijah now,” he ordered them, “he’ll be skulking around here somewhere, probably practicing a lecture for me. Stall him long enough for me to finish up here.”

They nodded again and sped off into the woods.

Klaus turned to Caroline then, “it appears I’ll need a new vampire for my sacrifice, sweetheart. Why don’t you choose?”

Her eyes widened, “what do you mean?”

Klaus turned his head and gestured to someone, and a few moments later Stefan and Damon’s bodies were dumped in front of them.

“They’re only unconscious,” Klaus answered her unspoken question, “at least for now. So, what do you say, Caroline?”

Was he really asking her to choose between Stefan and Damon? Normally it would be an easy thing to pick her favourite – she wasn’t particularly pleased with Stefan at the moment but she certainly preferred him to Damon. But to sentence Damon to death …

She was concerned about how much she wanted it, about how delighted the monster inside her appeared to be at the idea of ensuring Damon’s demise.

Klaus watched her intently as she struggled with the decision, morality fighting with bloodlust.

“Come on, love,” he coaxed, “I think you know what you want – you just have to be brave enough to say it.”

Damon was an awful person. She didn’t know everything about him but she thought she knew enough about that to be sure of her conclusion. He’d hurt her badly and she imagined he’d hurt many other people in even worse ways. Klaus was going to kill one of the Salvatore brothers no matter what, so why should she not choose the one she considered worse?

“I …” she stuttered out.

This wasn’t a world she understood. She knew how to navigate high school politics and small-town planning committees, not this deadly world of monsters, magic and blood.

Klaus reached out and tucked a few of her mussed curls behind her ear. His fingers grazed her face and she felt her skin tingle.

“I know the transition is difficult, sweetheart, but you’re doing wonderfully so far.”

She didn’t feel wonderful. She was covered in blood, had killed someone and was now being asked to choose a sacrifice victim.

Klaus leaned closer, his mouth brushing against her ear, “make your choice, Caroline, and your new life can begin.”

His voice was almost hypnotic. Petrifying though he was, Klaus had an almost overwhelming charisma too. The monster inside her _wanted_ him, and the girl found herself intrigued too.

“Damon,” she said, trying to sound firm and mostly succeeding, “Damon for the sacrifice.”

She vaguely recognised that Elena was screaming in the background, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. Klaus’ mouth had widened into a horrifyingly beautiful smile and she found herself unable to look away from him.

“Excellent choice, sweetheart.”

A man and woman dragged Damon into the fiery circle Caroline had woken in and she idly noted that she didn’t feel nearly as guilty as she probably should.

She looked around the clearing. Stefan still out cold on the floor in front of them, Damon in one circle and Elena in another. There was someone missing, though.

“Where’s Bonnie gone?” she asked.

“She lives, for now,” Klaus confirmed, “my witches had to incapacitate her, though. An untrained witch is a dangerous thing, you know.”

Relief flooded through her at the confirmation that Bonnie wasn’t dead. As angry as she was with all her friends for the way they had ignored what Damon did to her and kept her in the dark about what was happening in Mystic Falls, Bonnie was still her best friend and she couldn’t forget that.

“You won’t hurt her?”

“She’s a Bennet witch,” Klaus said, though Caroline had no idea what the significance of that was, “which means she can be a valuable asset or a serious liability. My brother Kol is good with witches – I’m sure he’ll be able to … persuade Miss Bennett that working with us will be far better for her continued health.”

Caroline tried not to shudder at the thought that Klaus had at least some family. It was clear that he was both dangerously charming and also some kind of monstrous king of the supernatural world – the idea that there were others like him was worrying in the extreme.

“Now, I’m afraid I’ll have to leave you for a while, sweetheart. I’m on a bit of a tight schedule with this ritual and I’d like to have it finished before Elijah storms in with all his tedious righteous indignation. James and Sylvie,” he waved over a man and woman, “will escort you home.”

“You’re … letting me go?” she asked.

She was a bit confused. It wasn’t that she wanted to die, or to be incapacitated in the same way Stefan or Bonnie were, but Klaus didn’t strike her as the sort to leave loose ends.

“I’m letting you go home,” he corrected her with a smile that showed sharp white teeth, “but we’re not finished yet, Caroline, not by a long shot.”

She shivered slightly and his smile widened, “oh, the things I can show you about this life, Caroline.”

He sighed softly, “but now you must go. This ritual is likely to get messy and I wouldn’t want you to be collateral damage.”

“Elena,” her eyes strayed over to the brunette, still sobbing quietly and watching Damon and Stefan’s still forms.

“She’ll live,” Klaus told her dispassionately, “it wasn’t the plan, but Elijah was obviously feeling sentimental. Still, perhaps there will be further use for a living doppelganger, and clearly this one shares none of Katerina’s irritating ability to evade capture.”

Caroline didn’t really understand what he was saying. She only had pieces of the story and she couldn’t quite work out how to get it to make sense. Still, it seemed that Elena would stay alive. That was something, at least.

“I’ll see you soon, Caroline,” Klaus promised as his two minions led her away, “don’t go running off before we have our talk.”

There was steel in his tone, a warning to her. It wasn’t needed, she’d heed his words – she wasn’t stupid, after all, or suicidal.

She felt his gaze as she walked away. When she reached the tree line, she heard a high-pitched scream and involuntarily turned around.

In the final glimpse she caught of Klaus that night, with fires roaring behind him, he had blood smeared around his mouth, darkened veins under his eyes, and fangs on full display.

It was the most terrifyingly arousing thing she’d ever seen in her life.

The monster inside her roared with approval.

Caroline only knew her life would never be the same.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed it.


End file.
